


GALEFORCE

by Amethyst97Skye



Series: Transformers: A Different Dimension [3]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Execution, Gen, Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person Omniscient, Past Character Death, Sacrifice, Victory, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-23 17:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: Without sacrifice, there can be no victory. The fate of the world rests in the hands of a single, insignificant human… and it is not Samuel James Witwicky.





	1. Prologue: A Good Day to Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [northpeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/northpeach/gifts), [wolfsrainrules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsrainrules/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Of Cybertron (Old)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8796652) by [northpeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/northpeach/pseuds/northpeach), [wolfsrainrules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsrainrules/pseuds/wolfsrainrules). 



**Time Measurements**  
Breem - 8.1 Earth minutes.  
Cycle - 1 Cybertronian day, comprised of 1 Solar and 1 Lunar Cycle (40 Earth hours).  
Solar Cycle - A standard Cybertronian "morning" and "afternoon".

* * *

She never stayed in one place for too long, not unless she was given orders to the contrary, but that was rare. The silence was her constant companion, and when her Commander _did_ contact her, it was, almost exclusively, to relay bad news. It got worse with every passing solar cycle.

Every day, when the sun rose once more and she opened her chest plates, revealing her scarred solar panels, she would ask herself “Why”. 

Why was she here?

Why was this happening?

Why was she still fighting?

Her answer was always the same.

The only reason she survived was because of them. Her friends. Her family. She fought to live because she did not want them to die, to go offline, be they mechanical or mortal. They saved the world together. Once… twice… three _fucking_ times and this was how the world repaid them.

It was a fate worse than death, and the humans were convinced it all served a “greater purpose”.

They were dismembered, deconstructed, decoded until all that remained was a mindless drone. 

There was never a Spark to save, and not even scrap metal to salvage.

They took _everything_.

When they finally came, she was ready. Chromia lay in her arms, her Spark fading fast, but she had enough strength to issue one final request. She did not want to… but she granted it. It was the least she could do.

“Terminate me. With extreme… prejudice.”

There was nothing left of her friend to save, to salvage, nothing for them to steal, no coding for them to subvert and use against the precious few that still lingered in this life. Soon, there would be nothing but the next Cycle, the next New Beginning.

She sat and she waited for their reinforcements to arrive. She was done running, hiding, surviving. For the next breem, she would fight.

She would die alive.


	2. To Save a Spark

**Time Measurements:**  
Joor - An archivable measurement of time in a Lunar and Solar Cycle, equivalent to 1 Cybertronian hour.  
Klik - Roughly equivalent to 1 Earth minute.  
Lunar Cycle - 1 Cybertronian "night" (20 Earth hours).  
Stellar Cycle - 1 Cybertronian year.  
Nano-cycle - Roughly equivalent to 1 Earth second.  
Octivorn - Roughly equivalent to 8.5 Cybertronian years.

* * *

She had been hopeful. It had survived passed the incubation period but, alas, another one, dead. Had it lasted a few more joors, just a _few_ more, it might have reached full maturity. With heavy servos, she lifted the lifeless Hatchling and examined its dark chest.

“Report: Hatchling 7-9-9-1, conscious Sparked at 2202 joors. Offlined at 0112 joors. Delivered by Apprentice ( _relation-affection-deliver_ ) Artemis. Categorise: Stillborn, full system inertion.”

**Report acknowledged. System update complete.**

No matter how much Energon she consumed, no matter how long, or how frequently, she recharged, Artemis was always exhausted. She could not keep doing this, watching Hatchling after Hatchling die. It had been a full stellar cycle since the last mature Hatchling survived and left the Temple with a functioning Spark, and it had been a octivorn since any Hatchling survived long enough to endure the demands of basic training.

They had a near constant supply of clean, untainted Energon, and the Temple itself was secure, but despite the best intentions of every Apprentice, the Hatchlings kept dying, and no one knew why. The High Priests and Priestesses would convene, with increasing frequency, to Sing to the AllSpark. They were getting desperate but, for whatever reason, Primus remained silent.

Some were beginning to whisper that He had abandoned them. Others feared that the AllSpark was unable to give life because it was dying, if such a thing was even possible.

Artemis lay the little Sparkling in its hollow berth, covering its tiny protoform with the now grey translucent stasis sack. It would not due to dwell on what-was, or what-might-have-been. She had sat with the Hatchling for the entirety of a Lunar Cycle, her engine scraping the bottom of the barrel for energy to keep her sensors fully functional. Every klik counted.

She had thought – felt, _believed_ – that this… this was the one. The one for _what_ , she did not know. There was just something… special about them. It was unusually small for its code, yet it possessed unrivalled strength, fighting for so long against seemingly insurmountable odds.

But she was wrong, and never had her Spark Chamber felt so empty. As she lay down in her own berth, painfully aware of how there was no one to replace her should she file her resignation, a warm presence washed over her and filled the bottomless void.

She could hear… singing. Only the Priests and Priestesses were permitted to Sing in the Temple, but it did not sound like a choir of voices. No, it sounded like a single Spark, the voice soft and gentle, graceful and proud. Artemis could not quite decipher what they were singing, but it felt familiar, an Old Song, lost to the Ages, and it ignited her Spark with such power, such _emotion_ , that it was almost impossible to vent.

In a daze, as she ascended the stairs to the Temple proper, the Song grew fainter, but that did not make sense. Unless… unless one of the Priests had come to Sing to the Hatchlings. They used to, when time could be spared for such trivial matters, but it had been so long, so very long, that Artemis did not know who stood behind the door. She could not even begin to compute their intentions.

When she stepped forward, the door did not move, and when she tried the manual lock she found the pins intact, untouched. There was an emergency exit, as protocol demanded, but that was just as heavily guarded as the Temple itself, and yet she could _feel_ someone in the room beyond, the Song growing in strength, their Spark beating in time with their voice.

There was a part of Artemis’ code that did not want to interrupt what was surely a deeply personal moment, a matter of great importance, but she could not remember any of the Priests, or Priestesses, having Bonded with _any_ of the Hatchlings. Just who was this… intruder? What was their objective? How had they gained access to the Berthing Chamber without activating the motion sensors _or_ unlocking the door?

She had no weapons, as protocol demanded, and no reinforcements to protect her, but the Hatchlings… Artemis could sense concern, but it was not all-encompassing. It was, she deduced, closer to confusion. There were elements of alarm and fear, but they did not emanate from the Singer. Someone else was in there, and he Sang beautifully for them, reassuring them. It was unlikely, ferociously so, but Artemis dared to hope that it might be a living, venting Hatchling.

Her hands trembled as she pulled the pins, reinitialising the motion activated sensors. They were attuned to her Spark, and the Sparks of all the other Apprentices assigned to the Chamber, but it stood to reason that the Singer was none of them. She turned the lock, waited a nano-cycle, and the door opened, consequently instigating a complete system overload.

Her Spark shut down. All she could hear, all she could see, all she could _feel_ was the Old Song. She remembered it now. Someone had Sung it to her when she was but a Hatchling. Someone else joined the first Spark in Song and, suddenly, Artemis did not feel exhausted anymore.


	3. Into Darkness Unafraid

**Time Measurements:**  
Klik - Roughly equivalent to 1 Earth minute.  
Nano-cycle - Roughly equivalent to 1 Earth second.  
Stellar Cycle - 1 Cybertronian year.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, there was nothing to see, and it took several kliks to remember why. It was a hollow victory, learning of their success as her Spark shuddered, clinging to every nano-cycle so that she might hear her Commander smile. The image she envisioned was a sad, sorrowful and sombre thing, the severity of so many stellar cycles weighing on his Spark, like the darkness of space pressed against the edges of her optics.

They won.

No one died in vain.

She had fulfilled her oath and fought to the death, dying on her servos instead of kneeling on her hubcaps. He was coming for her, begging her to hold on, but the stars were dull, the sky black, and his words were streaming together to form the most beautiful music she had ever heard.

“Jazz’s song?” she asked. It sounded like it could be one of his, but she had not known the bot long enough to be sure.

_Hold on, Gale!_

She tried, for him, always and only for him, but the world was too slippery and the song too strong, easing – no, _erasing_ – the agony in her chest that made her heave for each vent.

The last thing she saw, the last colour that was imprinted on her processor, was blue. Royal blue. The colour of an ocean deep; the colour of a cloudless sky after a storm; the colour of her Spark, the heart that belonged to them. To him. It was the colour of Chromia who lay, somewhere, beside her. It was the colour of Drift who swooped down out of nowhere, cradling her half-severed head in his battered hands, his swords abandoned in the burnt soil. It was the colour of her Commander’s eyes – he had long since lost the flashy paint job – and as he bent closer, examining her broken Spark, she committed the image to her code.

Her heart flickered in recognition of his own. It reached for him as a mortal child reached for their mother, their father. Carefully, as one would nurture a Hatchling, he scooped her up in a scarred palm and held her against his chest. He knew she would refuse, but it meant the world to her that he still offered. It was her time, and it had been long in coming.

“Ride the current, Gale. Let it… Let it carry you _home_.” Drift’s vocal processor was broken, but not from battle.

“Until we meet again… my friend.”

“It was an honour to fight beside you, Abigail.”

She wished she could cry, to release some of the pressure behind her optics. “The honour… was mine, Optimus… Prime.”

**_“The honour_ is _mine.”_**

\---

Her mind reverberated with the sound, the sense of something… otherworldly, and it felt much like the… But did that mean – No, it could not. That was impossible.

**_“It is not as impossible as you might think. We were fated to meet, Abigail Witwicky, bound by Spark… and Soul.”_ **

Abigail Witwicky, daughter of the late Judith and Ronald Witwicky, three – or, was it four? – time saviour of Earth, the only organic worthy of wielding the Matrix of Leadership, did not understand.

**_“I do not expect you to. There is much you must learn, much I must teach you. You longed for the Lost Knowledge, a hunger to rival that of War, but it was not this desire that drove you. When it was within your grasp, you refused the call that so many of mine have fallen for. Wielding weapons of Hope and Faith, you led by example and protected that which was not yours.”_ **

Abigail disagreed. Whoever she was – _what_ ever she was – she had become someone, perhaps even some _thing_ , else. She closed one door to open another and, as much as it pained her, she did not look back. Whatever was, or could have been, was unimportant. It was the present, the existing gift, that mattered, not past history or future mystery. She faced them when they reared their heads, but she had not done it alone. She had not done anything alone. They were always there, guiding her.

**_“Yes. You embraced them. You embraced the_ Change _, the transition from one world, one life, into another. Yes, you were Chosen, and you proved yourself worthy of that choice. You restored what you saved, and you fought to salvage it, even when weaponless against your every enemy. I would now give you another choice: return, remain, or begin again.”_**

Could she return? She dared to hope that she could. But, where would she return to? Which life? Which family? Which _world_? She knew which she would return to if given the chance, and she had the choice…

But to sit here – or, was she lying down? Maybe standing up – before the God-Creator of an alien race, the Father of her friends, her Third and First family, and learn everything, answer every question… It was tempting.

Tempting, but ultimately unappealing. The knowledge would do her no good, not now she was incapable of imparting it, sharing it as they had done before, before she was even remotely worthy of learning such secrets. Even with her knowledge of the Beginning, the End, and all that was destined to follow, it was not enough. It was never enough, and she feared it never would be… but she would not know unless she tried.

**_“You will try?”_ **

No. She would not _try_. She would _do_. Act, attack, defend. She would choose, flowing with and fighting the current, as Time demanded. She would dive deep and stand strong. She would not freeze or flee. She would fight, fight for everything she believed in, for a future that she would never see come to pass. Not again.

**_“It is within you to succeed. Open your eyes, learn from those you teach, and choose wisely. Ascend now,_ Echombus _, my Fourteenth and Final_ Prime _.”_**


	4. An End to New Beginnings

**Time Measurements:**  
Astro-second - 0.3 of an Earth second.  
Klik - Roughly equivalent to 1 Earth minute.  
Octivorn - Similar to the "decivorn", it is roughly equivalent to 8.5 Cybertronian years.

* * *

 

The Voice, its… _invasion_ came so suddenly, so sharply, but Abigail-Echombus was not afraid. It filled her, an almost unbearable warmth, starting with her mind, returning her senses as it spread throughout her body. Neck, shoulders and chest; abdomen, arms and hands; pelvis, legs and feet. Everything was there, right where it should be, right where it _belonged_.

Beyond the heat, and the Song He Sang, was the precipice of a New Beginning. Energy flooded every molecule of her being and she rose to follow it, the AllSpark, Primus Himself, as a chilling mist closed in. She could still _feel_ it inside her, a presence within her heart, but it was out of reach and, uncoordinated as she was, she fell. Hard.

Metal slammed against stone, the scratching – the _clawing_ – made her ears bleed and she snapped her eyes shut; her arms were ladened with invisible weights, making it impossible to silence the screeching. No sooner had she thought it did every sound vanish. She felt the vibrations – her heart beating, people moving, and something _else_ she could not identify, a familiar entity that guided her – and she found herself standing, hands resting against something thick and cold and unyielding and she leant against it for support.

She thought it was glass, and this was confirmed when she opened her eyes, but what she saw had her staggering back against the wall. She did not have ears, or eyes, or even a body. Not in the natural, traditional, _human_ sense. It should not have surprised her, considering the… alterations, and upgrades, she had made to her organic form, though the initial modifications were acquired against her will.

Back then, she still possessed a figure that resembled a human woman, but everything that _made_ her human was destroyed, leaving nothing but a Cybertronian endoskeleton. The form she now inhabited was clearly Cybertronian; not a tiny, insignificant suit of armour made for a frail and fragile fleshling, but the body of an Autobot. It looked suspiciously similar to… to him, her Commander: Optimus Prime.

He had given her a new name. They called her Galeforce. He called her… ( _Insight-Aspiration-Confidence_ ) Echombus. Echombus… ( _Central-Choice-Security_ ) _Prime_.

Her new body responded to her every thought. She wanted to trace the glyphs, the symbols that covered her “skin”, and her solid servo separated into four fingers and a thumb, allowing her to do just that. They _hummed_ at the contact, her “mind” acknowledging the request to project images of the ancient text that once covered Optimus Prime. They were different, minutely in some cases and vastly in others, but their similarities could not be denied.

She possessed far fewer, but that was to be expected. Primes were _born_ , not made, and these ancient hieroglyphics – the greatest of oaths sworn, and vows fulfilled – were _earned_. As she defined each one, the meaning behind them rose to the forefront of her mind. Honour, Bravery, and Determination; Defeat, Sacrifice, and Victory; Endurance, Loyalty, and _Prime_.

Pressing her servos against the glass transformed the image. Gone was her reflection and, in its place, was what Echombus knew to be Cybertron. The city expanded beyond the powerful range of her optics, a Spark-shattering sight. Abigail-Galeforce-Echombus looked down and, sure enough, instead of the salvaged parts of a decrepit Decepticon and the heart of an… ascended Autobot, there was a Spark. _Her_ Spark. The front-plate chamber opened and Galeforce snapped it shut, the cold heat all-consuming. She turned her back to the window, desperately trying to gather her thoughts.

It was a foolish decision.

Something hit her, a controlled blast that rendered her right arm immobile. It had not been severed, but it might as well have been for its presence no longer computed to her.

She whirled round, catching a blur of silver and something black standing in a door that did _not_ exist before. Instinctively, she dropped her centre of gravity, widened her stance, and the entirety of her armour _clanked_ down as she summoned a spear from subspace. She knew what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and she did not question this newfound knowledge.

Diamond-white eyes changed to a deep amethyst and, without warning, she struck, catching one of them off guard with her speed, slicing through a servo. Her CPU was flying light-cycles in mere kliks but Galeforce refused to back down. They caught her alone and unprepared; she did not know _where_ she was, _when_ she was, or _why_ she had been brought _here_ specifically. Right now, it did not matter.

Right now, it did not matter.

Her spear-blade bisected a serrated flying disc It was aimed to whip around her and strike at the back of her neck, she spun her spear forwards in a wide arc, forcing her shadowed attacker to dodge ungracefully. His speed, agility and unusually fast reflexes had Echombus identifying him as a spy in an astro-second.

The second, Silver-One was smarter, swifter, _and_ stronger, but he did not so much as _dodge_ her attacks as he _danced_. There was only one Transformer she knew even remotely capable of such moves, and if this spy possessed the same code, then that meant – No, she could not be certain. Not until she scanned his processor and decrypted his downloads.

The Shadow, however, was persistent, and easily enraged. He threw a flurry of boomerang-like knives in her general direction, several snapping back to strike at impossible angles, but Echombus had anticipated this. Somehow, she _knew_ this bot, and she knew he would not fight her face-to-face. He was an assassin, striking from the shadows, a predator on the prowl, always watching, waiting for the perfect moment to _strike_.

Her attack pinned him against the wall, blade to the vulnerable chords across his neck, and she was half way through prizing off his blast visor when she _felt_ it. A presence, lingering between life and death, alert as a child late for their afternoon nap. Beside them were several faintly luminous sacks: Berthing Beds preserved for unborn Hatchlings.

Echombus did not wait to add two and two together. They were mercenaries, hired servos sent to spy on, and steal, the next generation of Cybertronians, no doubt for the Decepticon’s ever growing army, and one of them fought like… like –

Echombus saw red, even before the Silver-One shot her in the back, and her momentary distraction cost her dearly. The cables connecting her right leg to her lower body were burned by the blast, partial severed, leaving her limb uselessly sluggish. It gave the Shadow an opening to attack; he brought his knees up into her chin, snapping her head back like one of his boomerangs.

It was painful, and her visors whirled with the force of the blow, but his strength did not lie in the power of his strike but their position, and though Echombus lacked heavy plating, her helmet took most of the damage and it did, at most, a bit of cosmetic mutilation. They circled her, surrounding her, using her astro-second of disorientation to their full advantage.

Echombus had had enough games.

She twisted the hilt of her spear, the hand guard that rested in the middle separating, leaving her with two blades longer than her arm. An astro-second later and, pivoting on her dead leg, Echombus span, deflecting a blaster charge, and threw a blade; having calculated the position the Shadow was most likely to occupy when he dodged, she ignored his snarling engine in favour of the Silver-One.

It looked like him, acted like him, and fought _with_ him. He had been corrupted. Consumed. That was how they got passed security, it had to be. No one would question Optimus Prime’s second-in-command. It only then occurred to her that he might not _need_ the ruse. The Decepticons could have very well taken over the base, taken control of the nameless city she knew nothing about. It looked like the Capitol, but Echombus was not certain. She hoped it was not. If it was, and the Decepticons had control, then the Arc may have already been launched and the AllSpark lost to the stars.

Echombus deflected the Silver-One’s blasts wildly, corralling him into a corner until she could see the red of her optics reflected on his chest plate. His Spark felt frantic. She would not enjoy this, she would _not_ , but she owed it to him, to them, but most importantly… she owed it to Jazz. Twice she failed him, but no more. She would avenge his death.

With her spear-blade pressed against his dented armour, he did not dare move, shutter his optics, or even vent. She waited, aware that the Shadow – while unable to remove her blade – was poised to attack. It happened in a fraction of an astro-second.

Echombus artfully dodged the Shadow’s last disc, but she was not given the opportunity to strike, not in the way she intended, arching back as she had into an unexpected attack, that of a _third_ bot, one armed with electrocuting grappling wires. The contact burns alone, one of which threatened to severe her right leg entirely, made her engine howl. Her blade pierced metal, but it was not an offlining injury. She knew that, acknowledged that, through the pain.

Just as abruptly as it began, it ended, her metal plating hissing and steaming, her Spark pounding, warnings blaring across her visor. She fought the system-wide shut down because she knew what would happen now. She knew and it _terrified_ her. This battle, however, was unwinnable, but Primus did she try, her left arm scrambling around to identify him, the third Decepticon.

A vision of yellow, pale and sallow, swam before her optics. Echombus wiped her visor, but the interlace of black stripes made her vents heave for air. It was not possible. It simply was _not_ possible. She watched him die. She watched them both die! First Jazz, and now Bumble –

Her visor screamed for attention but Echombus ignored it. She rose on dead pedes to turn and fix eyes on the Shadow. His face was visible now – not entirely, but enough had been revealed – and she could not believe her optics. Jazz, Bumblebee, and Prowl. Even with only stories to compare his face to, there was no doubt as to the bot's identity. She was in the Pit, she had to be. It was the only logic explanation she could summon to her CPU.

A second set of wires attached themselves, tearing at her armour, and it was Abigail who screamed. She was incapable of crying, had been for almost a Octivorn now, but she knew he, the Bumblebee pretender, felt her pain. His frame shook with it, but he did not relent, not until subspace greeted Echombus as an old friend.

**Author's Note:**

> My sincere thanks to "northpeach" and "wolfsrainrules" for their work "Of Cybertron" which served as my Spark of inspiration.
> 
> Please note that my use of measurements are based on canon sources, but they are not canon themselves. They have been influenced by "Of Cyberton" and adjusted to fit my own Transformers world.


End file.
